California Legislature Passes Two Important Election Law Bills in Last Week

The California legislature has adjourned for the year. Before it adjourned, it passed SB 397, to provide that individuals may register to vote on-line; and SB 202, which says that in the future, statewide initiatives will not be placed on primary ballots; instead they will go on the November ballot. This is already policy in virtually all other states. Neither bill has been signed by the Governor yet.

Assuming SB 397 is signed into law, it will make it difficult for California to justify a policy of not permitting electronic signatures on initiatives, since registering to vote on-line involves an electronic signature.

“it will make it difficult for California to justify a policy of not permitting electronic signatures on initiatives”

Given that in recent months, they have been doing everything possible to make signature gathering more difficult, I think they’ll find a way to NOT allow signature gathering for petitions to be done online.

Or they might allow it if the organization doing such is all “volunteer”…
If anyone in the group is “paid” then the website would be be required to have a blinking 80 point sign saying “PAID STAFF”…”PAID STAFF”…

As i think online registration is not a bad idea it provide a opportunity to vote online. There is always a possibility that individual is not available physically and online voting facility will help them.

#1–Political Parties are not an intrinsically bad thing. They are a necessary part of a representative democracy, and are created when people with common beliefs get together to advance their ideas through the political process. Therefore, primaries are needed, so groups of people who have joined in political parties don’t have people who are contrary to their ideas using their name/party label.

#3–B.A.N. published recently that Estonia conducted an election in which about 20%-25% of voters cast ballots via internet.